One of Britain's biggest banks is reportedly considering a wave of job cuts amid a number of moves to its Paris head office.
HSBC is proposing large-scale cuts alongside relocating more roles from London to France as it continues its restructuring of the business, according to the i.
An insider at the banking giant said moves towards making a major announcement on job losses have begun, with some departments already being affected by redundancies.
The source said staff are expecting cuts to be in the thousands.
It added that many of the vacant positions at the GCB 4 level – commonly known as vice president roles in other banks – have been taken down from its internal careers board as part of a potential hiring freeze.
The source said: “A hiring freeze and the support sessions are the pieces of the jigsaw the bank always puts in place before announcing a major round of job cuts. It’s what’s happened in the past, and it appears to be happening again. Within the building it is thought that the job cuts will be across the business.”
It is understood that the role of the Regulatory Compliance team is being taken over by the Financial Crime Compliance department, and at least some of the roles moved to Paris.
The insider said that as well as fears over thousands of jobs cuts worldwide, "many more hundreds of jobs" would be moved from London to a virtually empty office that the bank has in Paris.
Last year HSBC announced it may move up to 1,000 jobs from its UK head office in Canary Wharf, London, to Paris over concerns around Brexit, but in April this year said it had put those plans on hold, with less than 100 jobs having moved so far.
A spokeswoman for HSBC said: "Business and function lines constantly re-evaluate their needs to ensure they have the right roles in the right locations to deliver for our customers and stakeholders globally."
